What is Graphic Design?
- Functions
- Inform
- Educate
- Increase awareness
- Persuade
- Promote
- Question
- Evoke emotional response
- Comedic value
- Design Context
- Advertising
- Packaging
- Branding
- Posters - promotional//commercial
- Billboards
- Infographic
- Editorial//publishing
- Maps
- Typography
- Process-based: woodcut//lasercut//print etc.
- Design for web
- Design for film//TV & media
- Tone of Voice
- Funny//humour//wit & pun
- Serious
- Playful
- Informative
- Condescending
- Ironic
- Quirky//cool
- Modern
- Minimal
- Targets specific audience
- Message//Idea//Concept - what is it trying to say?
- Political
- Health//Governmental
- Promotion
- Convince//persaude
- Inspire
- Advise
- Ethical
- Aesthetic values
- Intended scale//placement
- 3D//packaging - food & drink, parcels, bags & boxes, other products
- Print - A0 to A5 etc.
- Business cards
- Publication: books, magazines, lefalets
- Web page
- Signage & billboards
- CDs & record covers//inserts
- Life size
- Street//wall - public graphic design
- Branding in shops etc
- Media & advertisements
Different Contexts
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| Warehouse Project 2012 - flyer & website design by PIN Collective |
I really love the whole branding of the Manchester series of clubnights The Warehouse Project. The printed leaflet has a really modern & slick design, with silver embossing and a high quality printed cover which encourages you to look inside. It has a factory aesthetic which I think fits with the type of music played on the nights so appeals to the target audience. The publication folds out into all of the clubnight dates on one side, and the white dove image which is carried through on the website. The website is similarly intriguing and works well to navigate.
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| Swedish Design Company Kokokaka's website |
"KOKOKAKA IS A CREATIVE STUDIO with a strong belief in digital media. We have a passion for fashion, art, film & music, and love to combine it with interactive ideas."
The design and layout of this website is really effective. By having a selection of works listed as images and not just words, it is more intriguing and lively to navigate. Everything is clearly explained with full information and links, as well as options to view more images, hide and show the text and navigation panels. I think the style in which the site is made reflects the studio's aesthetic - it also demonstrates their skills at working with digital media so acts as a selling point for them as designers.
"A collection of 100 pixelated camera illustrations for anybody to download and use in whatever way they see fit."
Although Bill Brown's images are illustrations they have been organised and collected into a series and catalogued in the form of the website, which puts them into a graphic design context.
Vincci Bit Hotel, Barcelona - Hello Mosaic by Marta Cerda
Good and stylish use of illustrative typography on a hotel welcome desk. Has the welcome message but also functions as a decorative piece of art, and sets a good aesthetic for the hotel.
Different Messages
"Print ads and billboards will be posted throughout publications and city streets supporting the growing bike movement. The ads will also encourage people to visit BikeNYC.org which hopes to become an important destination for the city’s bikers, providing information on events and hundreds of options for social biking. Before long we'll reclaim the streets, two wheels at a time."
Clear message explained literally in the tagline and through the imagery used to encourage more environmentally friendly transport in NYC. Also a really good use of typography.
"The creative intersection of complex data and visuals can be deceptively simple in the most successful examples and it's almost like visual poetry dissecting the relationships behind what you are seeing. Our piece is a much simpler example but we were stoked to be able to asked to bring our tactility to the project and show a different side to our embroidery work."
This infographic has a very clear message but presents it in an unusual and interesting style to show how Levi Jeans have tried to reduce their impact on the environment. It is in keeping with the fashion brand and I think simply designed to communicate a lot of information.
Identity for a multinational suffering from the economic crisis, A2, 2009 by Mies Van Roy
These posters are communicating a serious and clear message with the tagline 'let's make things cheaper', in order to help the large corporation Phillips through the economic crisis. The design of them is stylish as supposed to corporate and the simplicity of layout, image & type means that the tagline is the focus - which gives it even more impact.
Different Functions
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Poster//Flyer for DJ Derek at Distrikt Bar, Leeds - October 2012
This poster and flyer is for a clubnight at Distrikt Bar in Leeds advertising the Reggae legend DJ Derek. Part of DJ Derek's novelty is the fact he is 72, so to use as image of him is humorous and should appeal to the right target audience. The image is placed at the centre of the layout and the type works around it which I think draws your attention to it further and adds intrigue. All the information is there and it can be reproduced on different scales in flyer & poster format.
"Crispin Finn are a design duo who produce everything in Red, White and Blue. We offer quality design, illustration and goods released in limited quantity at affordable prices. We hand print and produce nearly everything we make but where necessary we outsource to the best people we know."
These notelets//greeting cards play on simple and fun design and strip the concept of the card to the bare essentials: the message. To simply have the literal text of the greeting card without image yet still make it interesting and well-designed is an achievement.
"Deskidea is an office supplies e-commerce business with one main aim: to get a major sense of simplicity from the very first purchase from their website until the receipt of the material in your office. The brand identity was designed to boost this simplicity value and the graphic solution came from the name itself, Deskidea. The idea was to convey its value using basic office objects, with the pencil taking lead role. The different corporate applications are based on the pencil as a symbol, operating by itself or embedded within the identity."
Weezer Dry Cleaning Company Logo designed by Sam Kaufman//East Fork Studio
Incorporates image of hanger which relates to the business, as well as a mini W logo and the company name in a separate typeface. Has a slogan and location included too but in a simple, well laid out manner.
Different Tones
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Explode Into Space is the book about the dry observations of a man travelling to another planed in the year 1986. It has 176 pages of photographs and illustrations with little text. The book is designed in a very minimal style and is based around the imagery as supposed to text - and these images act as the narrative. It is fictional and a piece of graphic design yet also a story and work of fiction.
“The bold yet elegant logotype of the Cornelli master brand is
confident and proud of its ice cream roots, created to celebrate Italian
flair and ice cream expertise. The ripple of vibrant colour celebrates
and expresses the richness of life, the joy to be had by living in the
moment and the deliciously sensorial experience of all the products. The
naming and tone of voice carries this passion, feeling and energy from
the packaging right through to all brand livery, signage and
guidelines.”
The tone of voice of these products are fun and colourful with an emphasis on typography as image. Although these could end up looking tacky the refined nature of the typefaces used give them a vintage and authentic feel.
Head Full of Snakes is an Australian//New Zealand motorcycle magazine published by the designers Luke Wood & Stuart Geddes using Risograph print. It also comes with a free flexi-disc. Because of the risograph printing technique the publication has a DIY tone to it, which I think is representative of the urban culture in its content.
"Sightglass: A new identity for San Francisco–based artisanal coffee roasters, the mark was inspired by the actual sightglass window on the proprietors’ vintage Probat roaster. Boon created a full branding program—stationery, business forms, collateral, packaging, signage and website. (Identity/packaging were a collaboration with Kyle Blue."
The packaging has an organic & natural feel to it and the design is simplistic and looks handmade, which I think is suited to the idea of sustainability within the coffee industry.
Different Scales
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| Good Ol' Sailor Vodka |
"The new Swedish eco-vodka is distilled four times and has a clean, fruity nose with some spicy aftertaste and released in a Swedish-made PET packaging for minimal environmental impact. We have worked closely with Technologists at Petainer. Together we have produced a container which is environmentally friendly, has high levels of clarity and great shelf appeal, whilst at the same time is easy to manufacture in high volumes. We wanted to exploit the phenomenon of PET in the best possible way. The goal was to design would be integrated with the bottle." Designed by Mattias Broden
The packaging design for Good Ol' Sailor Vodka is very specific to the clear bottle and inspired by the contents. It definitely is integrated within the bottle and works well as 3D product design.
The packaging for Muse's latest album relies on liquid ink and heat sensitivity - the law of thermodynamic being referenced in the album title. Inside the box contains an LP in its own sleeve and a hardback book which contains the CD album and DVD. The cover of the book and LP sleeve also draw on the neuro-imagery of the album cover giving the whole package an integrated design.
"A lovely intricately-illustrated monochrome poster-cum-cover leads into the crisp, clear content, with the designers making excellent use of some stunning photography. A seriously good-looking treatment of this uber-dramatic subject matter." - via It's Nice That
Although produced on a standard A4 magazine scale the cover of the publication not only fits the magazine but also folds out into an A2 poster, working across different sizes to perform different functions within a single context.
"Christmas & New Year decoration for Siam Center. We created hanging installation made by used drinking straws–these colourful plastic tubes act as the building blocks of larger shapes and words, which will bring the spirit of the Christmas season into this 3 dimensional installation. This installation tried to emphasize the idea that nearly anything has a second life and can be reused." - via Farmgroup
Nice typography on a larger scale with an environmental concept behind the use of material.
